I am the director of our graduate and undergraduate tracks in the anthropology of visual communication, and of our visual communication media lab. I have been involved in interpreting culture on film and video for the past thirty years. I have been educated at St. Stephens College, Delhi, India, where I received a BA in English Literature (1968); the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I received an MVS (1983); and Harvard University, where I received a PhD (1991).

I have produced, directed, filmed and edited over fifteen well-received ethnographic films which illustrate the cultures of India, the USA and Vietnam and speak to various issues in visual anthropology. My films A Zenana and Tragada Bhavai: A Rural Theater Troupe of Gujarat (1981), Bharvad Predicament and Journey with Ganapati (1983), Forgotten Headhunters and Apatani Sacrifice (1978), Whose Paintings? (1995), Morning with Asch (1997), Conversation with a Collector: Dialogue with a Docent (1998), Close Encounters of No Kind (2002), ShaktiMa no Veh (2006), The Last Rites of the Honourable Mr. Rai (2009), and Rejuvenating the Land, Uniting the People (2009) have been seen by national and international audiences. Information about several of my films is available from Documentary Educational Resources.

My written publications address issues of art and anthropology, nomadism, religious worship, indigenous interpretations of local culture, ethnographic filmmaking and its reception, photography, Hindu marriage, Rajput ideology and politics and Vietnamese rituals. My research is concerned with the interpretation of culture on various audio, visual and audio-visual media. In addition, I am concerned with visual ethnographers, their biographies and their practice.

At the present time I am working on several ethnographic films that address themes of transhumance, Hindu domestic worship, Rajput ideology and biography. Much of this material has been gathered and structured in collaborations with Temple graduate students (Bruce Broce, Mathew Durrington, Joseph Gonzales, Susanne Kempf, Robert Lazarsky, Milton Machuca, Carey Million, Elizabeth Noznesky, Sam Pack, Lindsey Powell) and undergraduate students (Richard Cousins, Ronn Asch, Alethea Carbaugh, Rhett Grumbkow, Katey Mangels, Lauren Semmel, Keith Marchiafava, Travis Doyle) in field research and media lab participation in the USA, India and Vietnam, and in collaboration with individuals and institutions in these countries.

I am the director of the Temple University Summer Program in India. The program is intended for undergraduates and graduate students alike and is designed to introduce them to an unfamiliar culture in a nurturing environment.

"Perceptions of the Self and the Other in Visual Anthropology". With Rakhi Roy in Portrayal of People: Essays on Visual Anthropology in India. New Delhi: Anthropological Survey of India. pp 1-20 - 1987.

"An examination of the need and potential for Visual Anthropology in India." With Rakhi Roy inPortrayal of People: Essays on Visual Anthropology in India. New Delhi: Anthropological Survey of India. pp 75-99 - 1989.

The Unintended Audience: An Assessment of Yanomami Culture through the Viewing of Ethnographic Films by the Multi-caste Dhrangadhra Audience of Western India', for the volume The Construction of the Viewer: Media and the Anthropology of the Audience. Forlaget Intervention Press. pp 207-228 - 1996.

'Avatar, Technicolor and the "Lucky": Aesthetic Choice and Innovation in western India' in the Journal of Popular Culture vol. 29:1 pp 71-93. - 1997.

"An exploration of Rajputai and 'Maan' in the Rajput imagination". In Rajasthan in the New Millennium Religion, Culture, History, Society, Polity and Economy. Jaipur: Institute of Rajasthan Studies Press. - 2004.

'In a time of Fear and Terror: Seeing, Assessing, Assisting, Understanding and Living the Reality and Consequences of Disaster'. In Sarah Pink (ed.), Applied Visual Anthropology, special volume in Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp 60-71. - 2006.

'Journey with Ganesh: telling stories of objects acting in the world and as being acted upon in the world', in South Asian Popular Culture Journal, vol 4, no 1, pp 35-49. - 2007.